Pre-operative hypertension and its risk factors: A cross-sectional study among patients admitted for surgery at a tertiary health care facility of Eastern India

ABSTRACT

Background: Hypertension (HTN) is one of the most common diagnoses in a primary health care setting and it is one of the important and preventable contributors to disease and death. HTN is considered as an additional risk factor in anesthesia and HTN is of special importance to the anesthetist for various reasons. Tracheal intubation, surgical incision, recovery from anesthesia, and post-operative pain can increase blood pressure (BP). Objectives: This study aims to find out the burden of pre-operative HTN and its risk factors among patients who were admitted for surgical procedures at a tertiary health care facility of Durgapur, West Bengal, India. Materials and Methods: After obtaining permission from the Institutional Ethics Committee, an institution based, observational, and cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2019 to February 2019. A pre-tested, semi-structured schedule was used to collect Clinic Social data. Anthropometric measurements and BP were taken as per the world health organization STEP-wise approach to surveillance guidelines. BP was classified as per “The eighth joint national committee (JNC-8) guidelines. Results: Data were collected from 150 study subjects and were analyzed using SPSS, version 20.0 for windows. The frequency of pre-operative HTN and pre-HTN was found to be 38.0% and 32.0% respectively. As per JNC-8, 34.7% had Stage-1 HTN followed by 32.0% and 3.3% who had pre-HTN and Stage-2 HTN, respectively. Increasing age, male gender, smoking, increasing body mass index, dyslipidemia, and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were significantly associated with a higher frequency of HTN. Conclusion: There is a very high prevalence of pre-operative HTN and pre-HTN. Increasing age, male gender, smoking, overweight, obesity, dyslipidemia, and T2DM were significant risk factors for HTN. Routine screening of HTN should be done in surgical ward to see if there are cases of “white coat” HTN.